THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEALING BEHAVIOR OF GASKETS AND THE LEAK TIGHTNESS OF GASKETED BOLTED FLANGED CONNECTIONS

With the recent increase of a safety and environmental concern, the tightness of gasketed flanged connections becomes an important issue. In estimating the tightness of gasketed flanged connections, the sealing behavior of gaskets must be known. Currently, methods to test the sealing behaviors have been established in the North America, Europe and Japan. However, the relationships between the gasket data and the tightness of gasketed flanged connections have not been examined systematically. This paper consists of two parts: gasket data concerning sealing behavior and tightness of gasketed flanged connections. Firstly, several sheet gaskets were tested based on the test method JIS B 2490 in order to grasp tightness of gaskets. Secondly, tightness tests were carried out using blind flanges with the tested gaskets by J1S B 2490. Both the results were compared and discussed to highlight the relationship between them. It is shown that the tightness of bolted flanged connections is largely affected by the sealing behavior of gaskets. Based on the results, a simplified method to estimate the tightness of flanged connections is proposed.